The most biodiverse place on the planet

Here's the Manu fact that puts everything else into perspective. This one park, running from lowland Amazon rainforest up to high Andean grassland over more than 6,600 square miles, is thought to be the single most biodiverse place on the entire planet. More than a thousand species of bird live there, roughly ten per cent of the world's total, along with over 1,200 species of butterfly.

The scale of what's still unknown is the part that stays with me. So much of Manu remains unrecorded that thousands of species inside the park have simply never been formally identified. Deeper into the reserve, small communities live who have chosen to remain uncontacted, cut off entirely from the outside world, in one of the last places on earth where that choice is still genuinely possible.

I painted Manu in watercolour and ink, that dense green canopy, the beach and a family of Capybaras. There's a poster with a letter home and a postcard if you'd like one.

Shop the poster here: Manu National Park, Peru · Travel Poster